


The Sanctum of Rancor

by TheDweeb



Series: FFXIVWrite2018 [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, The Wanderer's Palace, The life of an adventurer, Tonberries - Freeform, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 18:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18946069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDweeb/pseuds/TheDweeb
Summary: The life of an adventurer was fraught with peril, but at the end of the day he was right where he wanted to be.





	The Sanctum of Rancor

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 3 of FFXIVWrite2018

The air was cold and damp, the stone walls slick with water that puddled in various places along the cobbled floor, and their footsteps echoed turning each step into three. When he had learned that there was no treasure within The Wanderer’s Palace, Clementain should have left well enough alone. He was not the fool who had charged in unprepared for a fight. He was not the fool who had watched a loved one die to carelessness. He was also not so callous as to let so dangerous threat go unchecked.

“Y’didn’t tell me there’d be ghosts, Clem,” the arcanist, a large roegadyn woman, whispered. She was an acquaintance, another adventurer who had heeded the Warrior of Light’s call to arms for the Sons of Saint Coinach. Like him she had made it through the Labyrinth unscathed, but she had declined further exploration. However, she was skilled enough that he remembered her which was why he had asked her to enter the Palace.

“I did not know there would be.”

He spoke the truth, but that did not set her at ease. Honestly, he thought she ought to be more worried about the tonberries he saw waddling along at the top of the stairwell they were facing. That was the threat he needed to eradicate lest they escape the confines of the Palace to wreak havoc on nearby settlements. While full to the brim with soldiers, Camp Bronze Lake would fall swiftly enough as those soldiers were there on convalescence. From there it would be a clean sweep to Wineport and Twelve forbid Gegeruju ended up having to leave his precious Costa del Sol.

“Are you all prepared?” he asked, shield up and eyes locked on the still unaware enemies before him.

“As long as there’s no more bloody ghosts,” the arcanist replied with a shudder, and she was followed by affirmatives from the conjurer and archer he had recruited for the venture.

Raising his shield, Clementain took a deep breath. For a brief moment he was back on the Bloodsands, the crowd watching with bated breath as the Stalwart Tower stood vigil and ready to repel any attack. Times had changed, as they always would, and the Tower began to move, plate graves echoing across the stone as he sprinted to and up the stairs. Halfway up, he lobbed his shield like a discus at the nearest tonberry which bounced off the creature’s skull back to his hand. Taking advantage of the creature’s stunned state, he brought his sword down then cut across in a series of quick strikes.

An angry squeal to his right alerted him to the charge of the second tonberry which was then blinded with a flash of light as he tugged lightly on the barest threads of aether in the air around him. Before he could bring his blade down on it, a bubbling mass of green spewed forth from its mouth before an arrow pierced its eye. The creature had the last laugh, however, as it swiped at his knee, sending him back a step and right into the knife of its compatriot. Fortunately, sharp as those damnable knives were his armor proved stronger though he could feel the dent of the greave in his thigh.

“Think fast!” the arcanist called and he side-stepped the incoming pulse of wind from the emerald carbuncle that knocked the tonberry into the wall with a sickening crunch.

He stood straight then turned to his companions, pointedly ignoring the smear on the wall as the tonberry dropped to the ground followed by its guttered lantern. The saying that old habits died hard was never truer than when spoken of Clementain, however his words of admonishment on form and speed died in his throat where his heart took up residence. In the doorway loomed a gargantuan tonberry, one of the many stalkers that roamed the halls searching for victims their smaller counterparts could not take down. While it looked utterly ridiculous in motion he knew it was a ruse because he had watched one rip apart a pair of treasure hunters that had decided the dream of reward was worth the risks.

“Move, now!” he yelled, voice reverberating off the walls.

His call had spurred his comrades forward, but not before they had spared a moment to look behind them. There was no time for their regrets and curses, colorfully impressive as they were, and he was up the next set of steps quick as lightning. Another tug on aetheric threads blinded the other tonberry, but it only caught the attention of the skeletal warriors that accompanied it which he spared no time or mind for as he continued running. Unfortunately, he could only run to the waiting arms of another pair of tonberries.

“Bloody. Fucking. Typical,” he ground out as he launched his shield at yet another tonberry before pulling in for one final flash of light to keep everything interested in him.

The strength of his anger crumpled the tonberry’s skull under his shield. A shrieking cackle at his back had him rounding, sword arm coming up in lieu of his shield, only for him to fall back as bony claws swiped stripes of blood across his face. Before he could even feel the pain of it, though, the soothing feeling of water aspected aether flowed over him and his flesh knitted back together. He was still vulnerable despite the healing, and so he turned, doubling one tonberry over with a sharp kick while sending another reeling with a downward slice that cut across its chest, and ran to his shield, still lodged in a tonberry skull.

Ripping the shield free, he ignored the blood and bone still stuck to it in favor of parrying another skeletal hand that was promptly removed from its owner. In front of him, he could see the rest of the monsters writhing in a dark circle of aetherial shadows only to be swiftly felled by a barrage of arrows, and before he could launch an assault on the remaining skeleton a burst of wind knocked it apart to fall in a heap at his feet. There was little time to breathe a sigh of relief, however; not when the soft, menacing shuffle of the stalker could be heard just around the corner.

In an instant his sword was sheathed, shield hooked onto his back, and his feet took his hands to the wheels of the Nymian devices. Said devices, like many before them, were rusted shut from Twelve knew how many years spent underwater. How the tonberries had survived was a question the scholars could ponder later. He was more concerned about how he and his party were going to escape the enormous knife glittering in the distance.

“Here, we grabbed these,” the arcanist said as she held out two snuffed tonberry lanterns, the tell-tale slosh of oil sounding like music to his pointed ears.

“Grease the other and man it, I have this one,” he ordered before taking one lantern then emptied its contents onto the wheel.

The shrill scream of abused gearworks assaulted their ears, but it still could not cover the sound of the ambling shuffle of the stalker that had begun to build in speed. There were subtler sounds lost to the noise, like the creaking of wood under the conjurer’s tight grip, the heavy breathing of the archer, and the breathy swears of the arcanist. Always stoic, Clementain remained at his wheel, steadfastly turning, ears deaf to everything except the roaring of blood in his ears. Finally, the door in front of them began to tremble while the ground rumbled beneath their feet.

“Go, NOW!”

Ushering the others through, he locked eyes–hazel to murderous yellow–with the stalker just before he ran through the doorway himself. As with others before, stepping across the threshold seemed to completely erase the creature’s ire and made it vanish. Not for the first time he wondered if perhaps they were illusions or if it was some strange, innate magic the creatures possessed. Either way it was no longer their problem.

“Please let that be the last of them,” the arcanist groaned as her knees bent to drop her into a squat.

“I’ll drink to that,” the archer commented, the statement punctuated by the procurement of a flask from her hip pouch.

“Put that away,” Clementain snapped which set furry ears back against her scalp and her tail bristling. “And keep your mouth shut. Something is not right about this place.”

Like most of the Palace the room they had entered was swathed in shadow, but instead of the soft blue-green glow of Nymian lanterns the warm glow of torchlight filled the area. It was an abrupt change and a disconcerting one. Moving to the steps while his party sorted themselves out, he took his shield back on his arm and unsheathed his sword once more, creeping slowly down the steps more quietly than he had been during the entire escapade. If the others thought to comment on it they kept it to themselves as they followed several paces behind until they all arrived at the foot of the staircase.

Water ran along the floor in precut rivulets, a feature likely meant to instill calm and serenity in the circular room, while at the back they could make out another, smaller set of stairs that led up to an altar. Clearly this was the inner sanctum of the Wanderer’s Palace, where devotion was once paid to Oschon. Clearly The Wanderer was no longer the ruler of his own sanctum, and as a feeling of dread crept down the spines of the party of adventurers the torchlight finally illuminated the Palace’s true ruler.

At the foot of the altar steps towered the largest tonberry by far, clad in a resplendent robe and crown. Like any ruler it watched them with an imperious stare, challenging the fools bold enough to step into its sanctum.

“I need to learn to say no,” Clementain sighed before he glanced back at his companions. “Remember, I am your shield. While I stand I will not let you fall, so let us kill this bastard and then we can have that drink.”

A round of cheers answered him as he stepped forward into the beast’s line of sight. The roar of the crowds sounded in his ears once more as he eyed the so-called king before it faded into the din of battle and the struggle of life over death.


End file.
